


Beautiful

by Elennare



Category: Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries
Genre: F/M, Fluff, Gen, Pre-Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-09
Updated: 2018-10-09
Packaged: 2019-07-28 11:34:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,431
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16240790
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Elennare/pseuds/Elennare
Summary: “We’re going to be late if we don’t leave - ” Jack pauses to glance at his watch again “ - five minutes ago. Miss Fisher! Could you please hurry up?”





	Beautiful

**Author's Note:**

> A (disgracefully) long time ago, ravenpuffheadcanons was kind enough to give me some opening line prompts and pairings off a tumblr meme, which I have finally got round to! The prompt for this one was: “We’re going to be late if we don’t leave like 5 minutes ago.” - Jack & Phryne. So ravenpuffheadcanons, I hope you like it and Im' sorry for the delay!
> 
> This is set vaguely somewhere late season 2 - early season 3... Poor Jack is very much in love and knows it, but would really rather Phryne didn't know it.

“We’re going to be late if we don’t leave - ” Jack pauses to glance at his watch again “ - five minutes ago. Miss Fisher! Could you please hurry up?”

“Just a moment, Jack,” floats back down the stairs of Phryne’s townhouse.

Declining to dignify such a blatant lie - and one he has already been told a good ten minutes ago - with any more response than a huff, Jack resumes his impatient pacing up and down the entry hall. The collar of his best shirt is rubbing uncomfortably against his neck, adding to his irritation and making him long for his usual working suit. If this were anything even vaguely resembling a normal investigation, he’d have walked out of here long before and left Phryne to make her own way, but as it is he has no choice but to wait for her (a small voice in his head wonders if that knowledge is precisely what’s making her take so long). It’s The Honourable Miss Fisher’s title and connections that have gained their invitations to the highly select party to be held at the Windsor; his place - publicly at least - is merely as her escort. A necessary subterfuge, true, but one that right now is being extremely annoying.

As he waits, he runs over the facts of their case so far. A most unusual one - an old English aristocrat who died on the voyage to Australia. Natural causes, the ship’s doctor had declared, citing the old man’s long list of ailments, and he was buried at sea. But something hadn’t sat right with the captain… half-heard comments from a family who didn’t seem inclined to grieve; an old friend who, thinking himself unobserved, spat over the railings after the sea burial… Nothing definite, but enough to make him suspicious. Enough to make him pass along his suspicions to his cousin the Chief Commissioner, who had passed them on to Jack, suggesting a discreet look couldn’t come amiss. And Jack, in turn, recruited Phryne, guessing (quite rightly) the suspects would be far more inclined to confide in someone of their own class, while he focussed on chasing up other leads. Of which they now have several, all painting a nasty picture of the victim - a man who had ruled his family with an iron fist, and cunningly cheated his friend out of a fortune. But nothing definite so far, nothing certain… Jack hopes the party tonight, where all their chief suspects will be in attendance, will prove fruitful.

“Here I am,” comes Phryne’s voice from behind him.

He swings around, ready to complain at the delay, and finds the words vanished from his mouth. She looks… he can’t even begin to explain how she looks. He knows vaguely that there will be words to describe her dress, words the Fleuri sisters could certainly tell him but that he has no idea about; the best he could say would be red, and shimmering, and clinging, and draping, and beautiful. It’s beautiful. She’s beautiful, and the glint in her eyes as he meets them again, the hint of a smile on her lips - lips as red as her dress - say she knows it all too well, knows exactly the effect she’s having on him.

“I’m sorry to have kept you waiting, Jack,” she says lightly as she descends the final steps, daring him to complain.

“Well, if this was the reason, I suppose it’s understandable,” he replies, another glance at her dress clarifying what “this” is. Her smile broadens in delight at the grudging compliment, though he doesn’t give her a chance to respond, hurrying on, “But we really must be going, we’re late as it is.”

She tucks her hand through his arm. “Not with my car, Jack.”

“Whatever gave you the idea you’re driving?” he asks, as they walk towards the door. “I’m supposed to be your escort for the evening, what’s the point of one if I don’t drive you?”

“Oh, I can think of a few other uses for an escort,” she murmurs, glancing up at him, and he shakes his head at her, half laughing. “Besides,” she continues, “the Hispano will fit in at the Windsor so much better than the police car, don’t you think? And you’re the one who’s worried about being late.”

Jack sighs and gives in; arguing will only make them later, and likely end with Phryne winning anyway. “Very well, tonight is your show after all, Miss Fisher.”

Phryne’s gleeful look at that makes him wish he hadn’t conceded quite so broadly, but it’s too late to take it back now.

******

  
Several hours later, Jack is almost back where he started, though distinctly more comfortable, sitting in front of a warm fire in Phryne’s front room and waiting for her to reappear.

The evening was productive beyond their wildest dreams; an overheard argument between the victim’s family led them to the sudden realisation that his grandson had been his killer. Unfortunately, they hadn’t quite been quick enough to prevent the boy from realising he was discovered, and he had attempted to run from them. A wild chase through the hotel grounds had ensued, including an ornamental pool which Phryne, not seeing in the dark, had fallen into full-length. But at last they had cornered him, and taken him to the station. After everything they’d heard about the old man, Jack had half expected a tale of hidden abuses, but it seemed the boy had killed him simply because he could, because he’d realised how his grandfather’s medicines could be exploited. He clearly felt no remorse for it either; the only thing he’d seemed to regret was being caught. It wasn’t a pleasant interview, and Jack was glad to end it, to lock him in a cell and leave to escort Phryne home.

Whether Phryne actually needed an escort home is a fair question, of course, he muses as he waits for her, and amuses himself by imagining the innuendoes she’d reply with if he were so foolish as to pose it to her. It’s not as if she’d let him drive, or paid the slightest attention to his caustic remarks on her reckless driving. True, she had his overcoat, which he’d insisted on bundling her into back at the Windsor when he realised how she was shivering. He’s not entirely sure it was just from the shock of the cold water, either; their teenaged killer had unnerved even him a little. Not that Phryne would ever admit to being shaken, of course, and not that she had seemed it while they were making the arrest, gun hand steady and eyes firm. But he already knows he’s not getting his coat back tonight; Dorothy’s taken it, and refused to give it back until she’s at least tried to clean it, despite his protests. No, it’s simply habit at this point, to have a drink together after closing a case.

“I’m sorry for the delay, Jack, the mud from that pond was remarkably stubborn,” Phryne’s voice cuts across his thoughts, as she walks across the room and settles in the chair opposite him. “I think Dot’s despairing over my dress, though she has hope for your coat.”

“Don’t worry about it, Miss Fisher,” he replies, with a smile. “That coat has seen far worse than a bit of mud!”

He looks her over covertly as she’s turned away, pouring out the drinks. A far cry from the elegant dancer he escorted out earlier, she’s wrapped in her robe, her hair still in disarray, faint traces of mud still marring the once-perfect make-up. At least it’s an improvement over how she looked as they walked through the door, damp and mud-splattered from head to toe, a most bedraggled figure - and still, to his eyes, a little shaken by the confession they’d just heard.

She certainly doesn’t look shaken now, as she hands him a glass of whisky. The firelight plays over her quick, mobile face, glints off her hair, warms her fair skin… her eyes crinkle as she smiles at him, and all he can think is, beautiful. Beautiful now in her kimono and slippers, just as much as she was in that dress; beautiful earlier, covered in mud and soaking wet, cheeks flushed from the chase; beautiful always.

“Well, what shall we drink to?” she asks, interrupting the reverie he deeply hopes she hadn’t noticed.

What indeed… “To ornamental pools,” he says, teasing, as he lifts his glass.

She narrows her eyes at him for a moment, then smiles. “And to overcoats,” she replies, touching her glass to his.


End file.
